Burton’s No. 31 car was only partially funded for next year. With RCR apparently having more funding for another driver (Ryan Newman?), Burton saw that his best move was to leave a year before his contract ended.

He wouldn’t say Wednesday whether he took a buyout, but said that he already had decided not to run a full Sprint Cup schedule in 2015 so he opted to start the next chapter in his career a year early.

“All I’m going to tell you is we both handled it well, and we both left feeling good how we treated each other,” Burton said when asked about a buyout. “We both feel like we treated each other with respect and we treated each other as professionals.

“I leave there knowing Richard did everything he could to make a bad situation as good as he could. And I hope he believes that I left there making a bad situation the best I could.”

Childress released a statement thanking Burton for his efforts and saying he was still hopeful to have a four-car team next season. He let Burton be the spokesman on the move, giving a driver with 680 career Cup starts and 21 career wins the opportunity to craft how his release is portrayed.

“He doesn’t have a money tree growing in the backyard,” Burton said. “I believe in my heart that Richard is going to have a driver in place that can be competitive and win races.

“And they are going to have sponsorship in place that can move the ball forward. That’s good for RCR. That’s not necessarily the best thing for me in the world, but I’ll figure it out.”

Burton joined Childress during the 2004 season and made the Chase for three consecutive seasons (2006-08).

But he has made the Chase only once in the last five years and has not won a race since October 2008. He is 22nd in the Cup standings and faced 2014 with the team needing more funding if he stayed in the car.

Burton said Childress tried to find sponsors for him for next season but it never materialized.

The 46-year-old driver still hopes to continue driving. He has been rumored as a possibility for several teams in 2014, but said that while some teams have contacted him, he had not returned messages nor talked to any team as of Wednesday afternoon.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do next year,” Burton said. “We’re just going to have to muddle our way through it a little bit. … I’m just going to have a good time the next 11 weeks, just go race my ass off and see what happens.”

While not ruling out opportunities in the Nationwide or Truck Series, Burton said he is both scared and excited about opportunities beyond this year.

“I don’t anticipate doing something that I don’t think can be competitive,” Burton said. “I don’t mind building something. I actually enjoy that. But at 46, that’s probably not something I would look forward to.”

Burton said he does not know if there will be an opportunity for him to work in television starting in 2015, when NBC takes over the ESPN and TNT portions of the NASCAR schedule.

“I know everybody has me appointed as the next TV guy or whatever, but I don’t know if that opportunity is going to present itself,” Burton said. “I just don’t know.”

If Burton were bitter about what he characterized as a “tough decision,” he wasn’t showing it Wednesday.

“How many people would give their right arm to do the things that I’ve been able to do?” he said.

Still, he said he isn’t ready to quit.

“I’ve been blessed, man,” Burton said. “We’ve done things we never thought we would do.

“My career has been longer than I ever thought it would be. … It’s been an honor to do it and I want to continue to do it. But if I never get a chance again, I’ll be sad about it but I’m not going to look at it with contempt.”